How do you display your dolls?

Hello everyone!

 

Today as I was looking at my dolls, I again came up with the dilemma of where to put them all... I have moved everybody multiple times over the last few years, and just can’t quite find the right place. I don’t really want them in the living room, where everyone can see them, mostly because I have some issues with people touching stuff - especially if it’s expensive. I also want them somewhere out of sunlight, and out of my pets reach. Currently they’re in my bedroom closet, which has a long shelf with enough space to stand most of them upright. However as they’re kind of difficult to see in there, and as I get more.. I feel at a loss space wise. For dolls, and other household objects. I have 29 dollfie dream, with at least two more coming in, and three other non-dd 1/3 scale vinyl dolls. Also seven Dearmine dolls of smaller scale, and one Volks MSD...So finding something practical is proving to be a challenge!

 

How do all of you store/display your boys and girls? Do you collect anything else as well, and if so do you keep all of those things together or separated? If you have pictures of your set up I would love to see them!

 

 

For reference, I also have quite a nendoroid collection and we have a large video game collection. My boyfriend collects and builds gundams and sideshow figures - as well as some others. I have no idea what to do with everything! I’ve been trying to get something set up to display as much as possible for a while, but keeping everything organized is tough. My house is decently sized, but I also have a large fish tank which takes up potential space for a display cabinet or anything like that. I have a baby on the way, so I need to change my hobby room into a baby room. We will still have one extra bedroom, but I’m planning on making that a guest room/extra room for my boyfriends kids from his previous marriage to stay in.

We are an 8 doll household, and we have them all on the desk in our bedroom. Sure, sometimes sunlight falls on them through the blinds, but living in Arizona the only way to not have sunlight fall on them is if we hide them in a closet, which I refuse to do. And like Billy collects dolls, I collect trains. Think like Lionel trains, so they are not small. I have a train room, and one whole wall is nothing but custom shelves to put them on. It's full, and I still have more, so I need to put shelves on wall 2 now. But I am also building a layout to run them on, but it'll only hold 3-4 trains worth. Mine aren't in the living room because it's full of books. If I get any more girls my desk won't hold them anymore (I already have to move one to my lap if I want to sit down and use the laptop there.) so I was thinking of installing a couple shelves above my bed that are spaced enough for the girls to stand, but also deep enough to put furniture there. Then I could do dioramas with them, each shelf being a "room" which will also allow me to interact with them and have a place to put their furniture.

Like Sinclair mentioned, he collects trains like I collect dolls. Which means that I too have a separate room for my dolls and their accessories. Well.... MOST of the dolls. Alright fine, the dolls are in three different rooms now. Let me explain.

 

I collect anime figures and Nendoroid Petites so I have shelves for them too. But those are in my doll room and in my computer room on shelves. Here's the Nendo Petite shelves which are in the doll room.

 

DSC_0796 by Billy Bennett, on Flickr

 

I also have various other toys and things in the computer room.

 

DSC_0798 by Billy Bennett, on Flickr

 

Please note there are Pure Neemo dolls on the bottom shelf here.

 

DSC_0799 by Billy Bennett, on Flickr

 

Without showing you ALL the stuff in the computer room ( more anime figures, vintage Star Wars figures and such ) here's what you actually asked about.... dolls. I have a large Target brand doll house designed for their own line of 18 inch dolls. It fits my MDD and Obitsu 40cm to 50cm girls quite well. This is on the back wall of the computer room.

 

DSC_0802 by Billy Bennett, on Flickr

 

Now for the bigger DD and Smartdoll areas. I keep a lot of my girls in the bedroom on top of my clothing dressers.

 

DSC_0797 by Billy Bennett, on Flickr

 

The rest of the big girls are in the doll room, which used to be the craft room in a past life. So far I am only using the right side shelves for dolls. The left side is still unused and has open shelving I use for photos.

 

DSC_0795 by Billy Bennett, on Flickr

 

You can see the Nendo Petite shelves in the foreground to the right. And all those clear bins under the shelves and to the right are where I keep the girls clothing, shoes, wigs, accessories, etc.

 

So yeah, having a bunch of dolls does tend to take up room but since I live alone, I have lots of spare room to display them all. And since I also collect other figures and things, I can relate to your BF and his figure building/collecting.

 

 

 

 

 

Billy

I'm honestly not a very 'fun' collector, display wise. Until recently all of my resins were in their cases, locked in a black wooden chest to prevent sun exposure/dust, and I have black plastic drawer units going across one wall in my room where I sort my other kinds of dolls into them (now with my two remaining resins- two MSD sized- in a top drawer with those white BJD pillows on top of them to prevent sun exposure- can you tell I'm overly protective of my dolls LOL?), with the top section used for various different doll displays that I cycle in and out to prevent any of them from getting dusty. I also have sunblocking curtains in my room and one of those air-filtering fans lol.

 

I think the drawer units are extremely helpful for organizing my collection, which is kind of big but mostly comprised of dolls in the 12'' range, but maybe you can find larger ones for the DDs and do something similar, and make it less sunny in the room with some curtains? Then maybe some floating shelves on the walls for the nendos and other figures or something? I know it might be important to you to have them all on display but maybe cycle them out and store the rest? I find it gives me more focus when I'm working on specific sections of my doll collection, to only have one type on display at a time.

 

My bedroom is TEENY and I renovated it specifically to have an entire wall for dolls, before they were all over the place and had high dust potential from being on display all at once. Dresser is in the closet, vanity on the other wall, bed in the back. I also have plastic rolley containers under the bed for bait dolls that I've collected over the years and some mini plastic drawers for BJD clothes on top of the dresser.

Most of mine are in a Pulaski curio cabinet, but a few have escaped the glass box and are hanging out on top of a dresser.

I keep all my big dolls in glass cabinets,the ones from Ikea that you see everywhere.

I live in a very small house,so that’s the best solution and they are protected from dust. Sunlight is not a problem because I live in a very narrow street and we never get it directly on the cabinets.

The smaller dolls (mostly Pipos cats) are on the bookshelf,which doesn’t give much protection from dust,but that’s all I have at the moment.

The thing that really bothers me right now is that I don’t have a very smart way to store clothes and accessories they’re all stuffed inside multiple boxes that take up a lot of space and can’t really fit everything in an organized way...

I would post a picture, but I can't yet unfortunately.

 

Since I only have one doll (Mashiro) she actually just sits on a ledge right behind my desk so I see here whenever I look up. Not related to dolls, but I have two glass cabinets from Ikea full of 1/8th PVC figures and figmas. I could make space to put her in the case, but I never really got around to it since I liked being able to see her.

For a while they stayed in the big IKEA glass cabinet thing. if the very top shelf was removed, it was just enough standing room

 

Now there's a small chair standing in the corner of my desk with both of them sitting on it. Sometimes I'd move the chair away and have them standing (one might lean on the monitor for extra balance & silliness)

For a while they stayed in the big IKEA glass cabinet thing. if the very top shelf was removed, it was just enough standing room

 

Haha, I feel that every collector has one of those! It's called a Detolf glass curio display cabinet for those who are wondering

Haha, I feel that every collector has one of those! It's called a Detolf glass curio display cabinet for those who are wondering

 

hey, they are damn useful! Clear solid transparent on all sides, shelves removable, closes up so don't have to worry about dusting your toys all the time, has a space on top to install a light if need be....

Even the lil magnet holding the door closed is useful! Got a keychain magnetized hanging for there

hey, they are damn useful! Clear solid transparent on all sides, shelves removable, closes up so don't have to worry about dusting your toys all the time, has a space on top to install a light if need be....

Even the lil magnet holding the door closed is useful! Got a keychain magnetized hanging for there

 

They totally are perfect for figures and totally worth the price. It's actually easy enough to add shelves too for smaller figures such as nendoroids or smaller BJDs.

 

My girls are displayed in a display cabinet from IKEA, along with my other BJDs.

forgot to post photo!

So here we're in the IKEA glass column as i call it. Can see exactly where one shelf has been removed (Saber's hand resting on the metal bar, that's what would hold up the shelf)

 

 

It's just the right amount of space for the girl to be standing. If you remove chairs and place a small cushion instead, she can sit and the shelf can be placed back above her head

When I had my apartment, my girls would sit on top of my two detolfs, I had no extra space so I just made the best of what I had. I have a bit more room now, so they use a ladder shelf. I actually painted this one white, but they are quite easy to come by.

 

I like my dolls being out in the open, I just dust them off once in a while.

 

Crappy cell phone photo, but you get the idea.

Christmas is over, back to normal! by xWhiteRabbitx, on Flickr

Mine usually chill in the living room, though every once in a while I may migrate a couple to the bedroom just so I have something cheery to look at when I pry myself jout of bed in the morning. I have a couple dressers in the living room where the doll stuff live, so they're distributed between those dresses, the cabinet I stuff my purse into every night, and my desk.

I collect dolls and I have 2 shelves in the living room for American Girl dolls, Diane precious moments dolls and Disney limited editions. I have a shelf in my bedroom which my resin dolls sit...well they are all over my bedroom. One sleeps in a mini bed next to my bed, some are on my dresser ect. After so many dolls you scramble to consider where to put them..

not much room left for growth, but i suppose i've got just about all the girls i could ever realistically hope to have anyway;

 

 

 

 

I store my DD in custom made acrylic case and for my MDD, I let her sit in my room so I can move her around.

I keep most of my dolls in my room and they are everywhere. . . I collect a LOT of types of dolls (including action figures and cloth dolls) and most of them fill up the usable space in my room. I have some I keep out all the time, and others that are rotated. The dolls that are rotated are stored in their boxes (if they have one) or in 'doll containers' when not in use. All the dolls not currently in my room are stored in their boxes (they are not in my room because I ran out of closet space. . .)

 

The dolls that are out are not covered by glass. I try to keep my expensive dolls out of the sun, but that is next to impossible in Florida with a window that takes up the majority of one wall of my room. I also think the best photos are taken in natural light so some of my dolls (like Mirai) go outside or take pictures in front of the window.

I worry less about dust because I regularly 'play with' and adjust my dolls which helps keep the dust off of them. I also 'wash' them regularly and wash my hands before touching them.

 

 

When I move into my own place I plan to have a 'hobby room' which will keep most of my dolls, books, and video game stuff in a more ideal environment. (It will also allow me to put a lock on the door so when I have guests over I do not have to worry about them going in there and touching everything).

 

P.S. Lookame, I would be interested to hear about your collection. I have some of everything you mentioned too!

i really wish i had the room to display my dolls better. sometimes i feel like i can't really appreciate them because they're crammed into a small curio. it's all i have at the moment to protect them from dust... but i don't get to see them as much as i would like to.

 

i don't have enough space in either of my rooms at the moment, but i've been trying to reduce clutter. maybe when i am finished reorganizing and donating a lot of things i don't need i will have room to display them differently.

 

i really like all of the different ways you all have shown your dolls. i think my favorite is the white ladder looking shelf. it's really cute and i could put my other little random things on it as well.

I love everyone's set-ups

 

I've got most of my dolls displayed on open bookshelves. I like having them out but hate how dusty the get. I'd like to get some of the enclosed glass display cabinets one day